Chilly Flat Damp Delicious

Delicious Orchards, Colts Neck

24 September 2016

The order I placed for a new cycle computer got lost in the ether; I dug out an old one whose receiver is held to its mount by electrical tape, and used more tape to affix the too-small mount to my fat handle bar. It served me well today, and if the new computer doesn't arrive soon, the tape on this one might be gummy enough to hold it through the rest of the season.

It was with a certain amount of restraint that I didn't ride from home to Tom's house today.  If I'd worked at it, I could have lengthened the trip over and back enough to make a century. I resisted the compulsion to find an extra ten miles somewhere, and instead met Jim and Tom at Tom's house to add a more reasonable 4.5 miles each way.

Good thing. "It's kinda sorta raining," I said by way of a greeting.

It kinda sorta rained on us on our way to Etra Park, where Pete, with his car, a rare thing, exclaimed, "What is this?"

"I'm sorry," Tom said. "I forgot to add you to the email about extra miles."

John B pulled in on his bike.  It was still kinda sorta raining.

It kinda sorta rained on us for the better part of 30 miles. 

Much of this was through suburban and exurban neighborhoods, which is far less scenic than most of us are used to. There was more traffic than we'd like. I guess this is why we rarely go out to Colts Neck.

We took a shortcut through a neighborhood that displayed the very definition of McMansion, up to and including not one, but two driveways with plaster lions as sentries. I never understood the plaster animal thing. I guess I'm not rich enough to get it.

When Tom stopped to change batteries in his GPS, at the corner of Casino and Ketchum, I took a picture of the most rural thing we'd seen so far, an empty lot behind a wire fence:

A few miles later, on Merrick Road, we got to some good stuff. It was now truly raining.

Pete, Tom, and John waited under a tree half a mile away while Jim and I took pictures.

Once in Colts Neck, it was clear we were in Trump territory. ~Shudder.~ 

"If I were here with a car I'd buy all the pretty things," I told John as we sat down to eat at Delicious Orchards. 

If you've never been there, imagine what a farm stand would look like if it were a big box store. Imagine a single brownie as big as a sheet of regulation copy paper. 

Pete was eating one of these when I sat down:

"What is that called?" I asked,

"A Circle of Death," he said, and when he finished it, started in on another, because everyone knows that a cyclist needs two circles to keep moving. Jim was eating fried bread. Whatever Tom had looked more reasonable. I ate the top off of a pumpkin muffin. It was good.

How Jim and Pete didn't barf on the way home is a testament to their metabolisms and proof that a B pace really is too easy for them.

We were about five miles away from Etra Park when the sky began to clear to our north. To the south, the clouds rolled out, and when we got to the park, I took pictures.